Hellboy was a baby demon summoned from Hell by the Nazis during WWII. Intending him to be a tool of world domination for the Nazis, the Allies instead got hold of Hellboy and raised him to fight the never-ending war against the supernatural. In modern day, an immortal sorceress named Nimue is brought back and threatens to bring about the end of the world, with Hellboy's assistance. Will Hellboy live up to his prophesied role in the apocalypse, or will he choose to fight on the side of good and protect humanity?
With the success of other R-rated comic book movies like Deadpool and Logan, this franchise decided to try an R-rated reboot with this film. I personally think it did excellent; although it got a lot of hate from other reviewers. Sadly, between poor reviews and a limited audience with the R rating, it didn't quite make the money they expected it to, so there probably won't be a sequel.
This film is based on a horror/adventure comic book of the same name, and is a little closer to its source material than the previous two Hellboy movies. They wasted no time in making use of their R rating; the film opens on a very detailed scene of a crow plucking a juicy eye from a corpse on a battlefield, while the narrator drops the first of many F-bombs in the very first sentence. It felt forced, like they just used the curse word to drive home the fact that this isn't a suitable film for kids. But I assume it's meant to ensure parents who brought their kids to this film realize the type of film they're attending. After that, though, dialogue felt a lot more fluid and appropriate to the setting.
The film lives up to its borderline horror comic book origin. It was a gore-fest at times, not shying away from some truly gruesome scenes and concepts, but still had time to crack jokes and lighten the mood as necessary. It wasn't truly horror, but more like action/adventure with looser rules on gore and language. Which, to me, was rather refreshing. Action films that stick to PC rules get a bit boring after a while. This felt more natural and realistic at times. As realistic as a demon fighting giants or faeries can be...
I like how the plot revolved around the topic of nature vs nurture. Hellboy was born a demon and prophesied to be the key to the end of the world. Yet instead of killing him and ending the prophesy, he was instead taken in by humans and raised to be good and righteous. Hellboy spends a lot of the film struggling with his nature, trying to decide who he truly is. He hates that he has to kill monsters and wonders if they'd be more peaceful with humans if they weren't hunted by them all the time. He wonders if he can ever truly exist among humans or if he'll just be a freak of nature to them for the rest of his life. He has to choose to either accept his destiny - his birthright - and bring on the apocalypse, or stick with those who loved and cared for him and instead prevent the end of all. And it's not as easy a decision as you'd think.
Even more interesting is the entanglement with the King Arthur story that goes on in this film. I won't talk too much about it as it's a pretty big plot point later in the film, but essentially, the evil sorceress is stopped by King Arthur back in the 5th century and lived on in torment until freed in modern day. I definitely didn't expect to get some King Arthur story in a Hellboy movie, so that was pretty entertaining.
If you enjoyed the other two Hellboy movies, I'd recommend checking this new version out. I truly thought Ron Perlman was born to play Hellboy, but David Harbour (who plays the Sheriff in Stranger Things) does an incredible job bringing the rebooted Hellboy to life. Despite negative reviews and poor box office ratings, I still found this film to be highly entertaining compared to the former two. Go check it out!
